Wed Mar 6: Megaprojects, Megaevents, and the Right to Housing in Rio de Janeiro: The Porto Maravilha Urban Operation

Wednesday, March 6, 7-8:30 pm
100 Hancock, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.

Presented by the Urban Affairs and Planning Program and the School of Public and International Affairs

This presentation discusses the experience of an urban planning studio of the Master of Planning Program at Columbia University (http://www.arch.columbia.edu/files/gsapp/imceshared/lld2117/1_RioStudio2012_FinalReport_interactive.pdf ). The studio analyzed the urban megaproject Porto Maravilha and the challenges and opportunities it posed to the maintenance and expansion of affordable and inclusionary housing in the port area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It evaluated the extent to which current policy and institutional conditions of Rio and Brazil helped or hindered an adequate response to the housing challenges in the port and the city, and proposed specific reforms and innovations that could help overcome barriers for maintenance and production of affordable and inclusionary housing in Brazil in general and Rio de Janeiro and the port area in particular. The presentation shows both the substantive planning exercise and a metareflection of the challenges and opportunities of the pedagogical experience.

Clara Irazábal is the Director of the Latin Lab (http://www.arch.columbia.edu/labs/latin-lab) and an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, New York City. She received a Ph.D. in Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley, and has two Masters in Architecture and Urban Design and Planning from the University of California at Berkeley and the Universidad Central de Venezuela, respectively. In her research and teaching, she explores the interactions of culture, politics, and placemaking, and their impact on community development and socio-spatial justice. She primarily focuses on Latin American cities and Latino communities in the US. Irazábal has worked as consultant, researcher, and/or professor in Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Germany, Spain, Vietnam, and the US; and has lectured in many other countries. She is the author of Urban Governance and City Making in the Americas: Curitiba and Portland Ashgate, 2005) and the editor of Ordinary Places, Extraordinary Events: Citizenship, Democracy, and Public Space in Latin America (Routledge/ Taylor & Francis, 2008). Irazábal has published academic articles in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Check her work at http://www.arch.columbia.edu/about/people/cei2108columbiaedu and contact her at irazabal.zurita@columbia.edu